A review by mulders
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.

Reviewing a classic always feels silly and a little presumptive— what could I possibly have to say about a book that's been made required reading in every other school in America? Of course it's well written, and sharp in its assessments, and deliberate in its portrayals. So I will forgo the redundant appraisal of the book's effectiveness in its political goals and go straight to the heart of it: its main character, Scout. What spoke to me most was not the story itself, (however well done, and it was), but the way it was told. Harper Lee has an unbelievable gift for writing children. Despite growing up decades and continents apart, Scout's narration felt so familiar, so precise, so real; it captured the logic and dreams of childhood expertly, and made the events of the book feel tangible. As our little hero navigates the ever shifting world of adults, politics and secrets and double-talk, so do we have to read between the lines to harvest from this book everything it has to offer. I would have loved to read this as a kid to have a point of comparison, but even having only read it as an adult, I could tell just how well done this was. Every detail was exactly as it should have been, and I am in awe of the attention a work this intricate must have required, and received. 

There are a few points I feel the book deserves praise for, other than the obvious, the main one being Scout's worries about growing up and joining the world of ladies. So strange and separate to her from the world of her father and brother, the two people she holds dearest and looks up to most, this struggle and its portrayal really struck me: the feeling of betrayal at being referred to as a "girl", therefore othered, the depiction of impending womanhood as "starched walls of a pink cotton penitentiary closing in” from which she wishes to run away. The push and pull of wanting to be taken seriously and be respected, on the one hand by Jem and her peers, and on the other, her aunt and the town's women: how is she meant to all at once be not-a-girl, and a lady? "Preserving polite fiction at the expense of human life,” is how Atticus described it, and to this day, he could not have been more right.

Her respective relationships with Jem and Atticus gripped my heart from their introduction and have not loosened their hold even now. The closest I came to tears while reading this book (which happened multiple times, including during that fated trial) was at those simple displays of Atticus's fatherly love, so quiet in their fierceness. Jem and Scout's relationship too feels wonderfully special, how he'll refer to them as "Scount'n'me", one unit, how through his coming of age and search for adulthood and independence he always returns to help and protect his little sister, and she in turn is more loyal to him than to anyone. I felt affection, sympathy and understanding for even Jem's biggest mistakes as if I were Scout herself, and revered and admired Atticus as if I were one of his own children. That is just how solid Harper Lee's writing is— whatever she said, I felt.

This extends even to Scout's relationship with Dill, a character which takes inspiration from Truman Capote, Lee's childhood friend and one of the only authors I know to share her particular writing talents. I could not get enough of this insight into a figure I so adore, and Lee did not disappoint. There will never be a more charming and fitting description of his nature than the one she gave: "He could read two books to my one, but he preferred the magic of his own inventions. He could add and subtract faster than lightning, but he preferred his own twilight world, a world where babies slept, waiting to be gathered like morning lilies.” God, these beautiful minds.

The bottom line is, To Kill A Mockingbird is a truly, in every sense of the words, good book. I'm glad I read it, and I guess I owe my thanks to Pretty Little Liars for inspiring me to. 
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